Can it really be possible? The latest Washington Post poll, for example, shows that 70% of Americans disapprove of Republican tactics in the budget impasse.

Yet as both the New Republic and Standard articles point out, Democrats face a number of tall hurdles to winning the House. First and foremost, they haven’t recruited enough good candidates to challenge the most susceptible Republicans, most of whom are entrenched incumbents with moderate voting records.

Americans also have notoriously short political memories. So the fiscal fights of 2013 are likely to have faded in the minds of most persuadable voters by November 2014 — unless the more dangerous stalemate over the debt ceiling triggers an economic calamity.

Consider what happened in 1996. Voters only threw out three Republican House members just a mere nine months after an extended government shutdown for which conservatives were widely blamed. The GOP even won two Senate seats to extend its majority in that chamber.

Another hurdle for Democrats is the once-a-decade redistricting process that took place in 2010. Republicans controlled more state governments than Democrats and they used their influence to solidify the GOP’s grip on the party’s more vulnerable districts. That helps explain why Republicans only lost eight seats in 2012 even though Democrats won 1.7 million more votes nationwide in congressional races.

More crucially, the president’s party has never won control of the House after being in the minority ahead of the midterms.

Put another way, Democrats are trying to do what’s never been done before. They need to win 17 seats to oust Republicans, but even in the four midterms when the president’s own party did well, the gains ranged from just five to 11 seats.

To make history in the midterms, Democrats probably have to emerge from the latest budget standoff smelling like roses. Yet the Washington Post poll also offers a warning to the White House and its allies. A slight majority of Americans also disapprove of President Obama’s performance, while 61% disapprove of how Democrats in Congress are handling the dispute.